The Light

         I felt a stick his me across the back, sending me careening into some empty barrels that usually held fish. For the third time this week, I found myself groveling on the icy cobblestones that burned my hands with an ardent cold. I swore, spitting a curse in bitter hatred towards life in general, yet at a specific target.
         Wasn’t it enough that their pungent words stank in my ears like the fish that permeated the air with saltiness, just like the residents of my hellish abode did with their attitudes? My precious ears were my guide, my beacon, and my singular source of pleasantry and connection with the coastal town. Why did people stoop so low as to harass indigents like me? What had I done to merit such malpractice? Merely existed for the last twenty-five years since the accident in squalid faithlessness at the complete mercy of my fellow man.
         What I wouldn’t have given to refurbish my bygone sight and harangue whomever it be that found the courtesy within them to shove my shriveled frame even further into the throes of my ongoing resentment of both my ghastly ailment and the insidious nature of the inhabitants of my home. They had only one individual whose circumstances forced upon him even more humiliation than what they endured, and all took it upon themselves to revel in my misery.
         All, that is, excepting a pair of tiny hands which often lifted my heart off the filthy floor. Those perfect nine-and-a-half little fingers always seemed to know when that feeble instrument in my chest needed a sweet melody played upon it to prevent it from going completely out of tune. Even though they couldn’t stop the stinging blows on my person, they provided me a cure for the deeper wounds of heartache and distrust. Yet so, I responded brusquely and without consideration of the child.
         I eventually wondered if those warm hands belonged to a better-off family, or if they, too spent the day scrounging through leftovers and refuse to gain passage into the next gloomy day. And why did this seeming angel return to assist me time and time again when my uncouth words attacked the unfeigned kindness?
         A passerby pushed me over yet again after having watched such an episode transpire today, and I heard what the boy could not from the righteously indignant man. I remained on the ground while arising to an understanding of the empathy the boy must have felt for someone just like him: older, and not as wise, but the same nonetheless. He had to have sensed my calloused insolence towards him, though he thankfully couldn’t hear my remarks. He simply didn’t care about my hardness, and likely wouldn’t have done anything differently had he been able to listen.
         My wet eyes saw light for the first time in two decades though I was still shrouded in perpetual darkness. This vision was not due to having perceived myself as in a more optimal station than before, nor was it because another bore similar misfortune and rejection as I. It was because I comprehended that my blindness was not limited to my lack of sight; I had failed to view beyond my own self the struggles of my fellow survivors.
         At this very moment of bittersweet self-reflection, frigid hands instructed by a yet colder soul take my coat and throw me to the ground. This consummately gelid act is no match for the blazing fire of human warmth the boy has sparked within my very being. This time, as I will likewise henceforth and forever, I thank my accoster for having noticed my fine taste in clothing and offer the sweetest blessing conceivable upon his impoverished family. He, too, knows hunger, arctic winds, and displeasure of all kinds.
         Who am I to wish him more pain? Am I no better than an unfortunate child?